


You Pretty Much Have To Be Gay

by charliewalkertexasranger



Category: Scream (Movies)
Genre: Aftercare, Anal, Anal Sex, BDSM, Bondage, Consent Issues, Dirty Talk, Dominant Bottom, Dominant Masochism, Fluff, Fluff and Smut, Gay, Gay Sex, Gratuitous Smut, Hand Jobs, Loss of Virginity, M/M, Masochism, Not Beta Read, Not Canon Compliant, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Rope Bondage, Rough Sex, Shameless Smut, Smut, That sound you just heard was Wes Craven doing a full gymnastics routine in his grave, The Author Regrets Everything, Unfortunate Implications, Violent Sex, Webcams, masked sex, way too many horror movie references
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-12
Updated: 2018-01-12
Packaged: 2019-03-03 19:01:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,042
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13347507
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/charliewalkertexasranger/pseuds/charliewalkertexasranger
Summary: While he and Charlie are setting up for Stab-a-Thon, Robbie concocts a foolproof plan for the both of them to survive Ghostface's murder spree.





	You Pretty Much Have To Be Gay

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this in bits and pieces over a two and a half month span meaning there's probably some continuity issues but I don't caaaaaaare enjoy the two movie geeks from Scream 4 fucking each other in a barn because this is what normal well-adjusted high schoolers write when the majestic and truly beautiful Rory Culkin awakens their sexuality at age 9
> 
> AALSO I ONLY PROOFREAD HALF OF THIS AND I WON'T TELL YOU WHICH HALF MUAAHAHHAHAHAHA
> 
> Enjoy the anti-Scratlet

Losing it is an interesting development.

Losing it after keeping a grip on it for so long in a situation where I have the full right to go completely insane with fear is an even more interesting development.

And, of course, given fate has already taken the beautiful Olivia Morris from where she stood, inches away from my sex-starved clutches, I had to have my composure shattered on what should have been the best day of the year for Charlie and I.

Charlie is on the top step of a ladder, facing away from me, in the process of hanging a Ghostface mask on the barn wall. He hammers away, one, two, three, before he's evidently content with his hook and he hangs the mask over it. 

I should be helping him put up decorations, and, until a minute ago, I was. But I'm scared, and unsure, and feeling weak.

Olivia died.

Why not Charlie?

My chest throbs at that very concept. Olivia was... something, to me, but I can't really figure out what. I'd call her a romantic interest, but that's difficult to say, given I wasn't romantically interested. Crush, romantic interest, implies a bit of actual desire, at the minimum. Friend implies that she gave a shit about me, and that I wanted only platonic interaction. Girlfriend implies that we had something going. 

We didn't. I valued her. I thought she was cool enough to fill a room by herself, and attractive, obviously, but had she tried to make advances on me, I would have only accepted them to cover for something else.

That something?

Charlie dying would bother me the way Olivia's death should have.

I'd be fucking destroyed.

And that leaves me where I am now, hunting for a way, any way, to save him. 

A slam interrupts my thoughts, and so does the surge of terror that cleaves my gut in half. We are  _alone_. Safety in numbers, sure, but the numbers have to actually be present. 

Ghostface?

Oh, it was Ghostface, alright. If the mask that's now on the floor counts.

" _Motherfucker_ ," Charlie hisses.

I glance at my hands. They're empty; might as well help him. I take a few steps toward the mask and pick it up off the floor.

"Charlie!"

Charlie glances to me and reaches out one hand.

"Thanks."

I toss him the mask. It lands perfectly in his outstretched palm, as if by magic, and then, he's back to hanging it up.

Of course, it falls again, and, of course, I end up diving toward the black pool of fabric like a dog playing fetch. 

"Why do I bother?" Charlie says. I shrug.

"One more shot?"

"No reason not to. It worked last year."

It did. Last year was... less than fantastic, venue wise, and absolutely stunning everywhere else. The movies themselves, obviously, and the music, the lights, the attention, the fact that everyone out there who went for a good time got a good time...and the decorations? Hell to the yes. We even got an animatronic Ghostface that, rest its soul, did not reach the end of  _Stab 3_  before someone who may or may not have been Trevor drunkenly attempted to brawl with it and ended up disconnecting the base from the rest of the device, leaving us with a very dead, very costumed Ghostface, dramatic reveal replaced with sparking wires.

This Ghostface mask, this specific Ghostface mask, got to watch not-Trevor from the wall as he threw himself into our animatronic so hard that he almost broke his collarbone sliding along the floor of the abandoned warehouse we'd set up shop in. Clearly, it'd had no trouble going up and staying there before.

"Goddamn it anyway!"

The mask falls again.

Charlie pauses on the ladder before starting his way down, one foot and then the other on every step, like he's terrified of falling.

I've never seen him scared before. Not even startled. It's probably more of a comfort thing, but I can't help but wonder if he'll be easy to convince about my own fears.

Maybe.

He pauses on the last step.

"Robbie, have you just been standing there? We're not  _great_  on time, here."

My stomach lurches at the thought of being scolded by him, but I swallow back the pain and continue. It's for his safety.

"Yeah, but..."

"But?"

Charlie backs down to the floor and tips the ladder over onto its side; I freeze, knowing that the sound of the metal crashing against concrete would likely drown out my words and kill all dramatic effect. There's a perfect haystack for him to throw his stupid ladder on not four feet behind me, but whatever. Make your noise, Charlie.

"Charlie, I'm scared!"

" _Really?_ I thought it was creepy here, but not enough to actually scare  _you_ ," Charlie says, abandoning his ladder to shuffle up to my side.

"No. Ghostface! Ghostface is coming for you, dude! You're not gay, and you're gonna drink, right?" I feel my voice raising without me intending it to get any louder, and any effort I make to try to stop it is utterly useless. "And, no offense, but you're not exactly Channing Tatum enough to lead a sequel!"

There's a brief pause, and in that moment, I think that I've blown it, and he's never going to speak to me again, and we're going to both die alone. 

Then Charlie speaks, vaporizing my fear.

"Robbie...  _really_ _?_  I know the rules. We'll survive," he says, slapping a hand against my shoulder before dropping it back to his hip. "You're funny, you know that?"

"No, dude, I'm serious," I say, grabbing for his wrist. It's so unfair that the best thing that's ever happened to us, this murder spree, this opportunity to live out what we love, is also the worst possible thing that could happen, because not only could it take the rest of our friends, but it could take us, too, and most importantly, him. He could be the next victim. Charlie Walker, my Charlie Walker, could end up just another bloody body on the pile, when he means so much more than that.

It's so easy to watch the kids in movies die, with the comfort of the fact that they're wholly, entirely fictional, and generally as bland as stale, unsalted Wheat Thins. The entertainment comes in their deaths, because their characterization is so oversimplified that it's impossible to connect or empathize with them.

But Charlie's my friend. It's different. So, so different. I know him. I love him. If he gives me the choice, provided we come out of this alive, I will spend the rest of my life with him, no questions asked, and without a single moment of hesitation, no matter what he decides to do with himself after high school, because Charlie's everything I've ever wanted in anyone. He's sweet and witty and quiet, with a fantastic taste in movies and music; it's like we were made for each other, so that I could be his voice and he could be my mind, two elements of the same body. If I lose Charlie, I'm losing a body part. I won't feel whole again, and I will have to adapt to the result of the trauma. Hopefully, he will be an arm or a finger or a foot, and I will be able to move on with considerable difficulty, whether real or imagined. At worst, he'll be vital to my existence, my brain, my lungs, my heart, and I'll die as soon as he leaves me.

Best case scenario, if one of us has to die, it's both of us, and we'll die at the same time, so neither of us have to grieve for the other's loss.

For the first time, I'm finding it hard to speak. How do I condense that all into words? How do I condense something as raw and as real as my love for him into a form as concrete as words? Every word has a definition, a meaning, and there's a word for every possible concept, but I'm still struggling to piece together the right ones to describe what I feel, the worry for him, the anger that I should even have to think about the death of my best friend, my first love, as something so probable, and the pure, unadulterated terror.

Fucking hell, the terror. It's all terror, every last bit of it. Terror, and indignance that he doesn't see how dangerous this is for him and how horrible it could be for me to live without him, even for a moment.

"Charlie, dude, I don't want to lose you. I'm terrified to walk away from you because I think Ghostface is going to take you next as soon as I'm gone." My grip on his wrist gets tighter, like if I let go, he'll disintegrate into nothingness and never return.

There's concern flickering in his round, distinctive blue eyes now; if that concern weren't there, blocking me, holding me back, I would probably find myself lost in his gaze, begging fate to let me show him how I feel for any amount of time, no matter how short. In any other situation, I would feel my chest tightening, distressed by his distress, but he should feel distress right now.

We're going through with Stab-a-Thon to distract ourselves from the danger, distract ourselves from what's at stake. I was the most passionate advocate for doing this, aside from Charlie, and yet, when confronted with the idea of his death, I can't seem to lose myself in the festivities and the desensitizing nature of it all, not in the way I swore to myself would be so easy.

Then the concern in Charlie's eyes fades out, like he knows something that I don't. It's the same way he looks at me when I'm making predictions about the ending of a movie he's seen and I haven't. He can't be this cocky, can he, to think that he's immune to Ghostface? I must convince him how we're playing with our lives, or risk losing him forever. I must. There is no other choice. And as long as he believes he's safe, there never will be.

"You'd be the perfect victim, Charlie! The genre-savvy nerd, arguably the one that should know the most about survival, dies? Then anyone could be a victim! It's the perfect twist!" My words come out unsteady, crackling at the edges, like they're finally giving in under the unbearable weight of my own anxiety. My cheeks sting with heat, and in my throat, a heavy lump is building, the kind which chokes me up when I'm about to cry. I can feel the moisture pooling in my eyes, ready to fall as I finally break down, the first casualty of our duo to the fear Ghostface hasn't yet managed to instill in us.

I don't want Charlie to die. I don't want to die. But those possibilities both seem so real. I just wish I could escape it all.

Maybe that's what the alcohol's for.

Charlie slides his hand up my back, until it comes to rest between my shoulderblades. I release his wrist from my palm. He knows better. That's why he's the one who runs Cinema Club, and I'm just his vice president. He always knows better. He's smarter and stronger and perpetually one step ahead, no matter what I do.

Though I'd never resent him for that, and I never, ever have, I find a bit more comfort in it than I usually do. He's right on Ghostface's trail. He's an expert. He'll keep me safe.

"Robbie, calm down. You're overthinking things," he says. A reassuring smile blossoms across his face, bright and wide and flawless. His gaze meets mine. If my stomach weren't binding itself in thick, twisted knots, and there wasn't any hot, acidic bile stinging the back of my throat, perhaps I would be feeling my knees go weak or my heart fluttering against my sternum. He's trying to calm me down, and like he has experience with it, when I'm normally so carefree. He's so good at this.

"Am I?" I sputter; my voice is still heavy, and lumbering, and unsure. We're powerless. All we have to protect ourselves are the rules and the hope Ghostface won't turn up at our party; is that really enough to justify a small amount of concern as completely unwarranted?

"You are." Charlie brushes his hand down, until he meets the small of my back. He slides his other hand onto my hip, as if to brush me closer, into an awkward, incredibly low hug. "Besides, if you were in a horror movie, you'd be like... number eight. You'd get plenty of screentime."

My heart melts into a hot, bubbling slurry that oozes down my torso to fill the pit of my stomach with magma. Charlie's going to be safe. We're going to be safe. And all because I love him. We're stronger than Ghostface. We're better than whoever's behind that mask, because, right now, we have the power of the rules on our side.

Gays survive. I'm gay. He's going to take my advice. We'll be fine.

In fact, after this, if the way he's holding me is any indication, we're going to be even finer.

"What would you be, tough guy?" I sneer back, teasing. I can't miss an opportunity to knock him down a peg, even if it's the source of incredible mood whiplash, worse than the masterpiece of the feeling solely describable as being unsure whether to worry or laugh,  _Shaun of the Dead_.

The smile doesn't pour off of Charlie's face faster than blood down Emmanuelle Vaugier's arms in  _Saw II_ , like I expect it to, but it is instead replaced with a half-hearted smirk, one that seems to be begging to regress back into what it was prior.

"Eleven, probably. I'd outlive you."

The hand on my back navigates itself to the opposite hip, the one Charlie isn't already holding; I find my hands a place perched on his shoulders. They're not soft, not that I expected them to be, given that he's small and thin and a good candidate for protruding bones, but they're certainly relaxed, and I find a bit of pride in claiming my position as the one who put him at ease, even if he wasn't exactly alarmed beforehand.

I don't think I've ever been this close to him before, not on purpose. I tripped over my own feet and fell on him, once, while we were preparing for a Cinema Club meeting; he was talking to me about something, and so, he was facing toward me, but not expecting it, and I scared him so bad that he jumped about a foot in the air. But there was a moment between the impact and his reaction, one where the world seemed to stutter upon its axis and where everything made sense, when our chests brushed together as I slid against him, and our eyes met, and I felt just this way, with a warm giddiness coursing through my veins and every muscle in my body struggling not to erupt into uncontrollable spasm at my own joy, and at the contact, and at my own realization that this, this is how things were always meant to be.

"Then you'd protect me, right? For as long as you could?" I whisper. His heat is so close to me. It engulfs me. It consumes me. It becomes me.

I need him, and not just for the protection. I've always wanted this. I've always needed this. If there's a bright side to this all, besides the obvious, it's that we've been forced together to survive, in a way that I might have been too terrified to ever confess to desiring before this.

Charlie gives a small whimper; his gaze scorches through me, and his firm hands are tight on my hipbones. He's leaning in, closer, closer, until his breaths burn against my skin, and his lips are an inch away from mine. Even that distance is overpowering.

"Yeah," he says. "You bet your ass I would."

He kisses me then, brushing his lips against mine. They're soft, and warm, and everything, everything, everything I thought they would be.

I expected our first kiss to be more aggressive, less tender, especially when coming under these trying circumstances where lust is more beneficial than love, but then again, I never expected it to come as the result of a murderous rampage taking inspiration from our Lord and Savior, the  _Stab_  series.

Charlie acts first, opening his mouth over mine, and forcing his tongue to brush the rim of my lower lip, and then, when I allow him in, against the surface of my teeth. Is he a natural, or does he have experience? I think I would have been the first to know if he finally charmed Kirby into giving in and kissing him, because he'd want to brag to someone, anyone, about achieving something like that after pining for her for so long, so he's probably just good at this, like I thought he would be.

I feel guilty that there was even a fleeting moment of doubt. He was made to be perfect. I should have known that.

Charlie's tongue probes inward, pressing further, desperate in its flickering for attention. This is how Charlie is supposed to treat Kirby, not me—he is not greedy, hungry, a voracious slut for acknowledgement, around anyone but her, and that realization makes me enjoy this just a little bit more. I'm enough to make him defy his character. I'm enough. I part my teeth just far enough that he can slide in between, to reach my own tongue, and for a while, he stands there, lapping wildly against the underside of the muscle, lips warm, shoulders stiffened against my palms, and his chest hard and solid, like it's the only thing supporting me and preventing me from dropping to my knees like I've been stabbed in an overdramatic death scene under the pressure of all my dreams coming true at once, culminating into a single moment.

I let him take control, and he accepts it gracefully, without question or hesitation, something that anyone else would probably find as unexpected as the ending of  _Sleepaway Camp_  from someone as introverted and socially uninterested as he is. When his tongue brushes mine, I take it as him guiding me into a wrestle, a control game; when he slips his hands lower, past my hips, onto my thighs, and then around, groping greedily, claiming me for his own, I take it as a signal to lift my hands off of his shoulders and begin to fondle the first button on his shirt, getting us closer to the end goal.

Charlie is the first of us to pull away for air, as I'm unlatching the second button. I didn't realize I had my eyes shut until they open, as if by reflex, like Charlie releasing me yanked back the lever that kept them closed.

His blue eyes are conflicted with guilt, and his mouth, half-parted, begging for air, is stuck in a loose frown. Maybe he's upset about Kirby. Maybe that was his very first kiss, as I suspected it to be, and he's terrified that he had it with me, someone whom he feels nothing for. Maybe the guilt's there because he does feel something for me, and he hates it, hates himself for having it, and would do anything, anything at all, to rid himself of the thoughts he is suffering through.

I don't mind any of that. The urge rises in my chest, anguish, hot and sharp, to comfort him, but at the same time, it is more important than anything else that we hurry up and do this. Charlie cannot agree with even himself what being gay means in the context of a horror film, so we must continue, in case a kiss is not enough to save us from Ghostface, in case a kiss is not enough to guarantee survival, in case a kiss is not enough to establish that we don't need to circumvent or disprove the rules to live.

"Charlie," I whisper, unsure of what else to say. There's so much to say. There's just so many things to tell him. But there is not time, and I do not have the strength. "I don't want to fight this."

That is all I have prepared to reassure him with.

I didn't expect to feel this numb, this empty, this completely drained, in my fantasies about our first kiss. I didn't expect him to regret it, and I didn't expect to feel as though someone pricked me with a needle and drew out all of my energy like it was nothing more than a blood sample. I didn't expect anything like this. But I cope, and it is flawless in its flawedness, because he is here, and that is all that matters to me.

Charlie looks at me as if he wants to say something, anything, to break the tension, but he doesn't, instead soundlessly reaching to remove my jacket from around my shoulders. I pluck out another button from his shirt, and then drop my arms so that he can wrestle them free. When he finally gets my jacket off, he tosses it on the floor a few feet away, where it pools into a sad light blue puddle.

He leans in for a second kiss, and it has the passion that the first one had, but that passion is much more permanent this time around, refusing to subside even after Charlie breaks us apart again to grab a big handful of fabric off my shoulders and start to force my shirt off. Whenever I blink, I see a flash of his intoxicatingly bright smile, his endless waves of dark, fluffy hair, his slim shoulders, his piercing, handsome eyes. I would do this if Ghostface stayed in the past and in fiction. I would do this without hesitation, without a second thought or an inkling of regret, as soon as Charlie gave me the word. I would do anything for this, just for the right and for the permission.

It sucks dick that Olivia's dead, mostly because now, without her, I have no way to convince everyone that I don't literally suck dick; the fact that I do is beside the point. But if this massacre can bring Charlie and I closer, and kickstart the best Stab-a-Thon yet, then perhaps her death, and all of the others, weren't for nothing. Maybe life is just God's movie, and we're all actors who can't read the script, but there is a script nonetheless where everything is predetermined and arranged to fit perfectly, collapsing like dominoes one to another to another, and they were all merely pawns given life only for the purpose of death.

I shouldn't wonder why, and only be thankful of the lives taken to get me to this point. If I'm right, then they existed, breathed, laughed, lived, suffered, remembered, waited, believed, aspired, and had it all, every last bit of it, snuffed out with a callous disregard for morality just for this to happen. The least I can do is spend this time carefree, enjoying it all.

I ease my arms up alongside Charlie's hands as he lifts; this makes the process of removing my shirt simple and painless, and before I can so much as take another shallow, anxious breath, there is no turning back. My shirt is balled up in Charlie's fist. I'm pale and flaccid and scrawny and every last inch of it all is exposed to the world. We can only proceed forward. Everything we've ever had, everything less than this, is a storm of smouldering ashes blazing across the path at our backs, and in one action, our friendship is lit on fire, scorching, and then dies into nothingness, charred beyond recognition, like Freddy Krueger without the molestation. Not that someone's dick won't end up diddled. Dick diddling is sort of a requirement, provided we want to live through this bloodbath; but if Ghostface jumped out of nowhere and stabbed me, I could die right here and die without regret.

What would happen if Ghostface attacked us? It's practically a recipe for death, if watching  _Stab 2_  has taught me anything about fighting the killer in your lover's name, but I like to think Charlie would leap in and protect me with a rage-fueled superhuman strength his small, lanky body shouldn't possess. I would lie there, bleeding out from my wounds, and the last thing I'd ever see would be a blurred vision of him fighting like a one-man army, with all the power and raw violence of the parking garage scene from  _Drag Me to Hell_. It would defy everything we thought we knew about this being a remake of the original murders, but fuck, there's not a single thing wrong with being a right hero. Maybe it'd be the surreal plot twist designed to distinguish the reboot from the original, to make Charlie the new Sidney when all signs point to anything but. I mean, we have immunity, now, from what we're doing. It's a very real possibility.

I stand frozen, sides heaving, throat dry, chest thundering; Charlie's round eyes, cornflower irides sharp and striking against the dusty, dull backdrop of the dark barn around us, rake my bare skin up and down, first examining for flaws with a scrutiny that makes needles prick into every inch of my body, and then consuming me with every breath until there is nothing, nothing left, like the last oxygen remaining in the coffin he's been buried alive in. There's a brief pause that goes on too, too long, where things could have gone either way, if Ghostface weren't trying to kill us all, and then, a smug smirk, the distinctively cocky kind that only Charlie could muster up, creeps across the edges of his pink lips.

"Damn," Charlie whispers, little more than a particularly heavy breath even against the silent backdrop. He reaches for the next button on his shirt, but instead of pressing it back out of the slot, he pinches the fabric nearby between his fingertips and parts it until the shirt slumps, unsecured, to his sides, barely clinging on over the curves of his slight shoulders. I can see his abdomen now—he doesn't have any definition, excluding the bumps of his collarbone and hipbones, which are fairly prominent, but he is perfect all the same. I've seen him shirtless before, but never in this context, and it's enough to make my heart flutter in my chest.

"I didn't think I looked good enough to warrant profanity," I say. I slide my tongue over the rim of my upper lip, the signature move of a cringeworthy, awkward virgin trying to be sexy. I don't. Charlie's probably just desperate to protect himself with the rules. If Ghostface is watching, whoever's behind that mask would have heard his comment on my body, no matter how brief, and accounted that into their plan for the remake if they've any respect for horror at all.

Charlie pauses. His smirk widens into a full smile.

"That's hardly profanity, you fucking faggot."

Though it's a joke at my expense, I can't help but feel a warmth seep through my veins, drawing a smile across my face, and before I know it, we're both laughing harder than we have in years, let alone since the murders started, and for what would have been the first time in a long time had this happened in any other situation, I feel complete, like I've achieved all there was left for me to achieve. Maybe that absurd metaphor about this being God's movie, and all the victims having died for this very moment, deserved much more credence than what I've so far lent it.

Not only do I get to live, but I get to have Charlie, this boy, and all of his humor and his wit and his horror expertise. I'm not sure what I did to get here, but I guess my audition was pretty impressive if it got me a role so comfortable to play.

In all of that admiration emerges the fervent compulsion to know how Charlie's skin feels against my lips; I lean in toward his neck and press my mouth onto his throat, hands coming to rest beneath his opened shirt on either side of his ribs, and then, there I am, kneading indicipherable shapes against his pulsating jugular with the tip of my tongue. He's just as soft and smooth as I thought he would be, and he's untainted by any form of blemish, bump or scar or anything palpable.

I doubt Charlie thought this would be how I'd react to what he said, erupting into laughter and then kissing him, but I don't think he was surprised because he doesn't so much as flinch, instead taking it in stride and tucking my head against him with the rim of his jaw. He releases a gravelly, low moan that seems to sprint away into the air around us as if it were pent up inside him, longing to be freed, and finally got a chance at escape.

If he likes this, then I have something he'll like even better.

My fingertips sneak down the warm, flat expanses of his flanks, down to caress his hips. This is where I find what I'm looking for; skimming along the solid heat of his flat abdomen, along the stiff waistband of his jeans, I come to another bump. The button. I don't stop nibbling at his jawline, and I stay occupied there, massaging one pinch of skin after another. With my fingertips I ease the button from the slot, and then give the zipper on his fly a pull, just to make ripping his jeans off him a touch less awkward.

Charlie snags me around the shoulders, and though the urge to fall into his grasp and drown in his touch tugs at every inch of my faltering body, pooling in my limbs, coursing through my heart, with a burning, encapsulating heat that seems to smother me down until I am struggling with every bit of my existence not to suffocate, I fight that urge away with the much stronger desire for survival, and the even stronger desire to please him. I grab onto the waistband of his jeans at the sides, ready to tug them down and get to business, but Charlie pushes me back and undresses himself.

I pinch my lip between my teeth and bite down. There it is, the object of so many fantasies, jutting out until it is evident between his legs, bound in the tight silken fabric of his boxers. His cock. His fucking cock.

I knew it was a monster. As attractive as I find him, we both know he's not exactly Channing Tatum, not from the waist up and especially not from the neck up, but I didn't really expect him to be doing this much compensating. Of course, being friends as long as we have, since grade school, I've seen him naked before, but it's been a couple of years, and I assumed as time passed that my mind was exaggerating and replacing reality with a wishful homoerotic fantasy. But I was not wrong at all. It's difficult to put a number on it, with it covered, but it's like someone's dropped me right into Pornhub's gay section.

And, what's better than that, any of that, what is freeing, and both sobering and stunning, is that I can do whatever I want to it short of savagely mauling it off, like that one scene from  _The Last House on the Left_ , not that I'd mind disfiguring him for life and being the source of immeasurable emotional trauma as long as it meant I could put him in my mouth, even for just long enough to gouge my teeth through his flesh. It's mine to claim. It's mine to put everything I've got into, no limits, no restraint, until Charlie says I'm done.

All because of Ghostface.

Is it wrong to want to meet the person wearing the costume, the person or people who hacked up Olivia Morris like a fucked-up, blood-spurting rotisserie chicken, and thank them for this twist of fate? Probably. But that is not to be dwelled on, not now, not when I carry so much responsibility on my feeble shoulders. I need to make Charlie feel good. I need him to leave satisfied. I need to condense every lingering thought of passion toward him into this. Only then will we emerge survivors.

I want, more than anything, to fall to my knees and service Charlie right here, until he can't stand it anymore and, quivering beneath the overpowering pleasure of his own climax, he shoots his hot load right into the confines of my begging, starving mouth and down my aching throat. But patience is more important. This may be the only chance I get to go all the way with the love of my life, especially if he's wrong and this will not save us. I'd be an impulsive idiot not to take advantage of this.

"Jesus, are you okay?"

Charlie's voice pummels me in the temple, knocking me out of my daze in a matter of less than a second. I glance back up. The shadow of a grin sprawls out over his cheeks, like a big, attention-grabbing orange sign advertising his lack of seriousness. I glance back up at him.

"I'm just..." I swallow, despite my mouth feeling so dry that it should be impossible. It tastes like bile, and runs down just as acidic. "I'm fine."

"I should hope so." Charlie blinks. His gaze travels downward, to the point where I was staring not long ago. He knows. He's probably very satisfied with himself, ans rightfully so. If I were Charlie, I would be the biggest narcissist on the planet; it seems that it would be hard not to be, if I were perfect. "Thankfully, or unfortunately, depending on your point of view, I haven't killed anyone with it yet."

"I'd say that's unfortunate. I'd let you stab me to death with that."

"Where would you want me to stab you?"

Holy fuck.

Anywhere. Anywhere he wants. I need any orifice he can fit himself into spasming uncontrollably as it overflows with his warm seed. I need him to fill the inside of me physically to match the way he consumes me mentally, emotionally.

"Wherever you want."

There's a small pause, and every breath seems to be walking on the thin ice covering the murky depths of the pond from  _Orphan_ , one more step towards taunting fate to unleash everything at once, sending us both hurdling into the black waters of a type of contact that we've never had before.

"For someone who broadcasts their entire life online, you're sure full of surprises," Charlie purrs, leaning in closer, until we're pressed up together, with his chest tight against mine. "I like that."

"I have more."

Where the fuck did that come from? I knew I opened up around him, in a way I don't with anyone else, even my followers, but I didn't realize it would be so easy for him to guide me along the way he just did, inserting words right into my speechless mouth whenever I needed to say something. He's not supposed to speak for me. I'm talkative to the point of tedium, and he's anything but, and yet, somehow, here he is, with a lead chained around my neck.

Before I can debate the subject any longer, and make myself too nervous to continue, something I would surely kill myself over, if Ghostface weren't here to get me first, Charlie plants his open mouth onto my lips; when the stiffened end of his erection presses into my thigh, I snatch it and palm it against the pad at the base of my fingers, grip firm and snug. He tugs away to groan out a shallow breath, and for a moment that stretches out too, too long, he freezes in that spot, dazed. Moisture oozes across his soft, touch-reddened lips, parted for air; his eyes are glossy, glazed, limpid, and I fear that if I were to tap their surfaces with my fingertips, I would create ripples in them like they're nothing but two pools of water.

I pause, too, unsure whether it would be more awkward to stop like this or to continue and start rubbing him off, and deciding to take the much safer route.

"Robbie," he says matter-of-factly, as if to attract my attention, even though he knows, or should know, if there's a lick of sense in him, that all of my attention is on him, "I think I'm in love with you."

I'm not sure whether he means it literally, or as a figure of speech to encourage me further, but I don't care; I press my forehead up against his, a wordless reply of solidarity. He just told me he loves me while we're together, here, with the ball of my foot leaning awkwardly against third base as I sprint toward home, and if I'm supposed to actually have words, I don't really know what it is that they would be. If by some great feat I managed even one, my mouth feels comatose and limp, and I couldn't do a thing, even if my life depended on it.

Really, though, my life depends on this. My life depends on the swelling feeling of joy rising in my chest and the heat throbbing from inside my cheeks, eating its way out through my skin to turn my face what I can only assume is tomato red.

My life depends on Charlie.

"You think and I know. I've always known," I whisper. "Not to—"

"Yeah, I know what you meant. Shh..."

He's so timid around Kirby, but he's taking charge with me. I don't get it. His fingers wrap around my wrist, and guide my hand back and forth over his cock... I can't even  _imagine_ the  _concept_ of him doing that to Kirby. If she wanted to do that, I mean, the way they talk to each other? Oh, she'd definitely be the one to initiate it.

But, then again, I grabbed Charlie first.

I did.

I snatched him up in my palm and offered to let him fuck me so hard that he leaves my hands sore and blistering. I dragged the subject open, and, with that, I assume I took his insecurities away, too, with the knowledge that no matter what he does, no matter if he doesn't live up to what I want him to be, I'll still leave satisfied. 

Now he drags my hand back and forth, back and forth, base to tip, base to tip, along the length of his swollen, engorged shaft. His cold fingers are tight against my flesh, an echo of how he probably wants me to hold him; when I finally give in and form a clenched fist, he lets out a sigh, followed tightly by a moan, and when I glance back up from watching the way he fucks himself with my fist, his eyes are clamped shut.

"I hate to break this off," he says, after a moment, "but I think we both know what we're doing, right?"

 _There's_ that signature geeky lack of confidence. Right. Right?  _Right_?

So fucking swoon-worthy. 

I release his cock, unwillingly. I want to stroke it to completion, or put it in my mouth and fuck it down my throat until he fills me up. But there's better waiting for me, much better, and all I must do is stay still and control my impulsive urges.

"Yeah..." I say. "Yeah."

He grabs onto my shoulders, and starts to back away; at first, I'm confused.

Then he falls beneath me, letting go, and I see where he's stepped us to. The haystack. 

"Okay, if we're doing this, we're doing this my way," Charlie says, folding his arms, as if it's some sort of display of dominance over me. "Go get the mask."

"Charlie Walker, you sick fucker."

"You're wearing it," Charlie grumbles in a tone with a force and a strength which leaves little room left to argue. "You know better than to argue with the president of Cinema Club."

Of course he'd bring that up.  _That_ must be why he's so uncharacteristically direct.This is just another order from president to vice, to him. Kirby might be qualified, but she's no vice president.

He glares, overdramatic; I scan him up and down one last time, meticulously, piece by piece, scanning his features for some sort of fleeting sign that he isn't serious, whether it be a tiny shimmer of amusement flickering over the surface of his eye or a half-smile blossoming along the corner of his lips. I don't see such a thing.

I like horror movies. I fucking love them. But Charlie?

Charlie  _loves_  them.

However, I suppose, or maintain, really, as it's something I would have stood behind had I been able to comment upon it all earlier, that there's much worse things to be into, and none of them could dissuade me from wanting to fuck him, whether it be out of genuine unconditional love or a heated instinctual determination to survive at any cost.

Despite all that, I still feel obligated to tease him. It's like a rite of passage for our friendship, at this point. I've done it so many times, even on the way in here; I can't conceive the strength it would take to pass up a glowing opportunity to continue the tradition.

"Knife too?"

I'm hilarious. Ha, ha.

Fucking kill me.

"Fuck yeah, baby!"

"I was  _joking_!"

"Come on, Robbie. It was your idea."

"And I'm starting to think getting ambushed by Ghostface is a better one."

"Mhm... that's not what you said when you were grabbing my dick."

"Ouch, that one stung... I'm sure there's a punchline here, but I'm having trouble finding it."

There's the mask, with its smooth cowl draped like a small black towel on a rack over the side of the cardboard. This is what Charlie wants me to do. So simple, so easy, to make saving his life, or, our lives, now that we're _one_ , blow him away. 

And we are one. Maybe we've always been less  _you and I_ and more  _us_ , and I was so preoccupied in my own terror at the thought of him rejecting me that I never realized that was the case. I mean, we both run Cinema Club. That's already a connection to draw us together in our own minds and especially in the minds of others. We've been an  _us_  all along, it seems, and this mask is here to cement that as a recognized fact.

I turn away and throw on the mask.

Then, I turn back.

"Holy shit, you look fucking perfect." 

This thing has terrible visibility. I toy with the positioning of the eyeholes until it's somewhat suitable, and I can see enough to kill someone. 

And if I can see enough to kill someone, I can see enough to see Charlie, waiting with his legs spread open. Something hot fills my throat; I swallow it down and rebound. 

"That felt like a thinly-veiled insult."

"Oh, it was."

"Charlie!"

Fucking  _dork_.

I take an unsure step forward, judging like the ground could collapse beneath my weight. The last thing I need to do is break an ankle and kill any chance of running away from—

Oh.

 _That's_  how the mask is supposed to fit. It doesn't change the fact that with my nose pressed to plastic, I've been breathing my own warm carbon dioxide for the past minute and a half, but hey, at least I can see well enough to kill  _two_  people, now!

"Shh, shh. Get in me before I change my mind."

"You're sure, right? I know we're doing this to live, but I don't want to hurt you. I'd  _never_  want to hurt you."

"Calm down, Billy..." Charlie says. "I mean, that's  _exactly_  what a killer would say."

"You don't... actually think I'm the killer, do you?"

If his death would destroy me, losing his trust to forces I can't control would  _eviscerate_ me.

"Of course not. Robbie, I... I love you. And if you were killing everyone, and you told me? I'd still want you as much as I do right now. I'd  _let_  you kill me."

"You're crazy," I say.

"Best people are."

That seems like a good enough line as any to fuck him after. I reach for my cock, ready to push it inside. 

Except I can't see  _where_ I'm supposed to push it in.

"Oh, Jesus fuck, I can't see where I'm supposed to be putting anything," I complain, making it fully clear, in my tone, in my phrasing, that I am not satisfied with that.

"Fine, fine, I'll wear it," Charlie says.

"Why don't we just... keep Ghostface out of this?"

"Ghostface is offended."

"Well, that won't help us live."

"Exactly."

Charlie gives a half-hearted tug at his restraints, as if to state the obvious, that he's not able to put the mask on without help. I feel something collapse in my chest, in a rush of heat and acid. The only thing worse than not being able to see him at all while he takes my virginity and I save his life is being able to see everything but his face. I always thought I'd get to remember the longing in his eyes when I first entered him, or picture in full the way he bit his lip as he found his pace inside of my still-tight, newly deflowered hole. But it seems that's not to be.

I'm willing to trade that memory, though, if it means he finds more pleasure in this all. That's all that memory would mean to me, anyway. Sentimental pleasure. Something to think back to when the killer is unmasked and this night is just another blip in the world's distant past, stripped of its danger by time and reflection. Something to whisper vivid recollections of in his ear when he asks me to tell him the moment I knew that we'd end up together forever.

Love is just an irrational pattern of finding more value in another person's pleasure than in your own, and if I really love Charlie, I'll let everything I wanted to attach to this moment collapse and die, into a limp shadow like what I imagine Olivia looked like in her final moments.

My fingers tremble at the tips as I slide the cowl on over his head, but despite that, I place it on perfectly, straight, not too loose or too tight. There isn't a wrinkle in the cloth that isn't intended to be there; the lights above us catch the white plastic of the mask in just the right spot, along the rim of the black dip that forms the mouth.

Flawless. I did a good job. I know he can't see it, but I hope he thinks so, too.

Though it's more than a bit awkward to be fucking someone dressed as Ghostface, I can't help but feel a twinge in my stomach as I scan Charlie over one more time. He's tied up and helpless, and all for me. That's always a statement of complete trust, but with the stakes so high, it means that there must be no doubt in his mind that I'm not the killer, and that this will guarantee our survival. Everything I wanted.

The trust, the bond, knowing that he would never suspect me being behind the murders no matter the parallels between  _Hall Pass_  and the killer needing to make his own film to be hip, might just be the hottest part of this. It wouldn't be the same otherwise. It wouldn't have the right impact.

"How's it feel?" I ask.

"Perfect," Charlie says; his rough voice is partially muffled, like he's speaking into his sleeve, but it's still familiar, and it's almost surreal to hear it coming out from behind the mask, especially a voice which is nothing like Ghostface's. "If Ghostface comes, I can't move or see worth jack shit, but at least I'll get to die with your cock up my ass."

"Speaking of which... I take it you're ready."

"Come on, Robbie," he groans, sounding almost defeated, weak, before striking back with a desperate energy and a fervent strength I wasn't sure was still in him. He's never tired. Never stops for what lies ahead. Impatient, but in a way that exudes an admirable level of courage. "I wanna feel it. Fuck me!"

Charlie's wrists thrash against the ropes, rough enough to drive his point further, but not quite rough enough to make his hips shift out of position. It's a gesture of desperation, like he's showing me that he'd do anything to break free and feel me pumping my cock inside him, deeper and deeper, until we can feel nothing else but the growing, swelling pressure building between us and within ourselves as we prepare to climax.

Charlie's begging. He's begging and putting his entire soul into it.

Charlie Walker is  _begging_.

And, when he does that, I can't deny him, even if I want to. Him pleading for literally anything from me morphs me into a mindless instrument for him to use however he pleases. He becomes Charles Lee Ray, and I become a Good Guy doll. He becomes Pazuzu, and I become Regan. He becomes Billy, and I become Stu. There's nothing I can do to fight back against his demands, and the only choice that I can rationalize is to proceed with the order given.

I grab the shaft of my cock between my fingers and thumb and slowly, gently, press it against the slit in his rim until it allows my cockhead into his oozing hole. It's a bit of a challenge. I should have fingered him first, enough to get him loose and relaxed; I'm no monster, but he's definitely never been used back here, at least not by anything bigger than an experimental finger or two, and not recently. I don't know what a guy feels like after he's been fucked a few times, but I don't need to. This has to be as tight as it gets. Every bit of muscle clings onto my cock, squeezing around it as if to attempt to suffocate the foreign invader until it submits and slips out of the warm, wet opening. It's better than my own hand, and he can't even tell when and where I want to be touched.

I pause there, unable to do anything but take a weakened breath. Judging by the ropes and the way he was begging me to fuck him, Charlie would probably love it if I hurt him, even to the point where he needed medical attention beyond what could be supplied by me here. Maybe he wants to feel like a victim, like someone has complete control over him, his life, his safety; that has to be what the mask was for. He wanted to be rendered totally helpless, climaxing waves of terror instead of pleasure.

If he wants to feel helpless, then I'll make him feel helpless. I owe that to him more than either of us could ever begin to comprehend.

I snatch onto his thighs, one hand on either leg, and lean forward. His opening parts around my shaft, loosening rapidly as the width of my cock battles its way inward.

Charlie whimpers beneath me, pained.

"Shh, shh, it's okay," I tell him. That was some incredibly fast dynamism, going from screaming for more pain to buckling beneath it like I told him to carry a piano on his back alone. "I'm going to go slow."

Charlie takes a quick, heavy breath that makes his scrawny chest rise and fall in one solid motion. If he weren't wearing the mask, his jaw would probably be bracing; he always breathes like that when he's about to cringe or grimace.

"When I scream, go faster, or I swear, when I get out of these," he grumbles through gritted teeth, throwing a bound wrist up as high as it will go for emphasis, "I will gladly stab the shit out of you right here and blame it on Ghostface."

The last thing I want to do is hurt him, especially when Ghostface is around and, until now, he could have easily done it for me. But I also don't want to make him upset with me, not when I've fought so hard for the right to his affection. Instead of responding with words—despite the fact that I'm the one inflicting pain on him, and that if I had sadistic tendencies, this dynamic would be very different, he is the dominant one, and words are merely a means of expressing a belief that my thoughts, the thoughts of the beta, the submissive, are worth listening to—I do what he told me to and buck my hips inward for all I'm worth, which, admittedly, isn't much.

I continue to press onward, until I have no length left to give him and my skin is pressed against his so tightly that not even air can come between us. Clearing Charlie open feels amazing, and his shrill squeals of agonized pleasure, irrational satisfaction brought on by his own suffering, don't do anything to lessen the tension at having my cock pressed up inside him, hugged by his virgin walls like he was specially and meticulously carved and molded to match every curve of my flesh. I have to take a moment for us to adjust, more for my sake than for his, because, somehow, whether it be from the adrenaline of losing my virginity to my best friend or because he's just so good, he feels better than my own hand, snugger, warmer, more inclined to reach every spot I need stimulated.

My second-long hesitation is time enough; excitement picks me up by the ankles and drags me forward like it's come straight out of that one scene from  _Dead Silence_ , and it only partially happens as a result of my own will. And back I go, the first disjointed movement in the pathetic dance of a first-timer desperately struggling to achieve some form of rhythm.

I thrust into Charlie. Along my shaft, I can feel the spasms that quiver through his muscles, rapidly tensing and untensing as pleasure shakes him. Fucking him means everything to me regardless, given that horror movies kind of lose their horror when there's a verifiable afterlife for the victims, but if he didn't care about surviving, I'd have been just as happy to watch him walk off with Kirby, because, in the end, when all else is irrelevant, I want to do whatever will make him happy, so there's a rush in knowing that I'm the one responsible for making his heart thump and his body lock up like he's been possessed.

He feels good. I feel good. We feel good together. There's no catch. Is surviving the reboot supposed to be this easy?

I can feel him slipping against the surface of the hay, so I tighten my grip on his thighs and half-lift, half-drag him closer, without pulling out; my cock fills space it could not fill before without intense effort, and Charlie lets out a gasp that makes my throat feel hollow.

"Ooh, Robbie, yeah..."

When I hear his voice say my name, my heart explodes in my chest, and I drown in the stuttering buzzes of the blood rushing in my ears, louder than him, louder than me, louder than the call of survival. Blood. So much blood. If I were pricked with a pin, it'd squirt out at a pressure matched only by the jugular slash in  _Ichi the Killer_  to cloak the walls, splatter over Charlie, squirt up to the ceiling, and flood the world in a boiling ocean of crimson, until I bled out into a limp, deflated husk. He said my name. He's living in the moment, breathing it, feeling it, knowing nothing but it. This is about me, and not anyone else. He isn't fantasizing. He has me and he knows it.

Fuck what they'll say about me when this gets out. Fuck what they'll think about us when we're the second biggest topic of discussion at Woodsboro High, dwarfed only by a fucking  _murder spree_. We're going to come out of this and come out of this better than ever, and I want the entire world to know how we feel, how much I love Charlie and how much he loves me. I want the entire world to see him buckle under me and hear him scream as I bring him to climax. I want them to hear the wet squelches as I pump my swollen dick deeper and deeper inside him, testing him and stretching him closer to his limit with every thrust. I want everyone and everything in the world to witness this moment.

And if that everyone and everything includes whoever's behind the new Ghostface... our problem? It's solved. Guaranteed.

And I got to make love to my Charlie out of it.

I reach up and press the button on the side of my camera. When Charlie doesn't react, when all I see is the jerking of my hips, I breathe a small breath and await the consequences of my actions. For a time immeasurable that fades into a static nothingness where everything that isn't Charlie and I is absent, we are a machine that, no matter how  _unpredictable_  things become, no matter how many unexpected screams of pleasure Charlie lets slide past his moistened lips, never deviates from a  _predictable_  pattern of my hips bucking and the muscles in his abdomen shuddering as he adjusts to having me inside again, only to have me ripped back out. 

I can't pinpoint when the passionate kisses, left like dapples of lust along his sweet, smooth skin, turn into rough bites that keep Charlie shooting out shrill squeaks of agony, one after another, but they do, and I'm left nibbling at the skin along his nipple, pinching it between the tips of my teeth and denting into the flesh. I hear a moan of my name intertwined with multiple squeals, and a command to go deeper, harder, and despite the fact that I don't feel ready, I go anyway—if he wasn't leaned on a haystack, I'm sure that Charlie would be thrown back a bit with every powerful thrust.

"Robbie, I'm gonna..." Charlie's words peter out, his rough voice wavering for a moment as he loses coherent thought to impending climax, "Harder, faster, yeah... oh,  _Robbie_!"

Even with him crying my name and thanking me for every vibration unfurling inside him, what should have been a dead giveaway, I feel him peak before I realize that I've managed to get him there. There's a sudden sea of intoxicating heat around my cock, and a rush of tugging, quivering motions along his walls as his muscles break into wild spasms, drawing tight, greedy, around my engorged shaft. If he ever had control, he has lost it, and that? That's  _my_  fault, mine alone, and that knowledge is all I need for the spark residing in the tightness building in my groin to erupt into a blazing inferno.

Harder. Harder. I'll fuck him  _harder_ , until I can't hold back anymore, just as he said to. And with the way I'm feeling, the pressure drawn around my hips like a too-tight, too-hot leather belt, the lightness in my limbs, the budding realization that I couldn't fight the thrusts that are now controlled by instinct even if Charlie begged me for mercy with all the strength left in his body, the point of no return is not far away.

Inside and out, Charlie's writhing gradually stills; his overwhelmed whimpers draw silent and his quivering shoulders go limp, normal, while, inside, his pulsating rings of muscle have all fallen to peace. But though he is finished, and definitely so, given that his hand, gleaming white over his fingertips, no longer strokes at his softened cock, I am anything but.

I am just getting started.

My hips buck rapidly, back and forth, back and forth, with no regard for Charlie's safety or pleasure. I focus only on finishing, finishing what we've started. Release is so close, bobbing on the horizon, and the pressure's building, growing, expanding into something bigger, unbearable, and everything's here, now, him, my Charlie, my fucking Charlie, splayed out under me, taking my cock, thinking only thoughts of me, crying, moaning, my Charlie, so perfect, his angelic features and shiny eyes the only things I've ever needed, oh,  _Charlie_ —

 _Charlie_.

I want that fucking name engraved into my flesh. 

And before I realize I am on the edge, I step off the cliff, and, there I am, plunging rapidly toward the ground below. The explosion of the impact forces my mouth open and my eyes shut; the intensity of it all, the waves, the shock, the sudden, sudden release, is too, too much, and I can't keep myself from crying out the name that, right now, and perhaps for too, too long, occupies far too much of me.

" _Charlie_!" I yelp, labored and tired and overwhelmed. How can I not be? When my heartbeat is pulsing beneath every inch of my skin and grenades are going off in the pit of my belly and the world is stuttering around my ears, sounds little more than a low buzz, it's a fight not to be overcome by the want, the need, the unequaled desire for  _him_  that is so present here, in this moment, the desire that bogs down my senses and binds my failing mind into a sticky, incomprehensible mess. 

I don't try to fight it; the feeling comes on naturally, and it is more of being eased, guided, into stuttering blackness, than dragged there with a vengeance.

I am struck into a dazed state by the pulsing, the thundering sensations, the distorted mumble of blood in my ears, and I am sure that if Ghostface came, I'd be frozen, unable to react; when it ends, it ends, though, and I am left to fall into the empty buzzing. Charlie finished before me, so I pull out and collapse beside him on the hay.

"Mmf..." I moan. "That was great." 

He probably wants to be released and unmasked; kink usually loses its allure right after climax. But before I do that, I flick the button on my webcam again, as to not allow him to see the red light that indicates I just recorded the better part of what just transpired.

"I'm still shaking," he says. I suppose that means he feels good. There's a relief in knowing he enjoyed it, despite all of the protests I've imagined him making when this scene last played out in my head.

"Hey, Charlie?"

"Yeah?"

"I'm just happy you're going to live. That we're  _both_ gonna live. Together."

I roll onto my side and reach for his binds. When the first knot in the rope gives, he bucks a hand free, and I move on to the second knot, which isn't as easy, but isn't extraordinarily difficult, either. Off comes the mask, too, so that I can see his reddened cheeks and his pink lips, still half-parted from the faint breaths of climax, and the way his typically smooth long hair is now frizzy and disheveled from being crammed into a cowl, and everything that makes up the striking beauty of it all that lets my throat melt.

Charlie's breaths are hard, quick, to the point where I can hear each one and notice the tiny aftermath, before I unmask him; as soon as the mask comes off, however, he calms his rhythm.

I toss the rope and mask across the room, where they skid to a halt a few inches away from the base of the Casey Becker prop that Charlie had brought with him, and once I am sure that there will be no teetering, no falling, no interruptions, I roll back over and grab for Charlie's hand.

"No, that wasn't quite it," I say, glancing back toward him. His eyes are shut, blissfully so, and when that is coupled with his already sweet features, he is every bit angelic. "I'm happy you're safe, and you and I aren't going to get stabbed, but... really? I'm happier that if there's anyone in the world you'd have sex with to escape Ghostface, it's me."

Deadpan, without opening his eyes, Charlie replies in one short sentence.

"What are friends for?" 

We both laugh.

"Speaking of what friends are for, I went pretty hard on you. Do you... need anything?"

"It was impromptu and I know better than anyone that bruises fade..." he hesitates, frozen, unmoving, his eyes filled with alarm. He swallows and continues. "I'd like to hold you. Before we have to get our clothes on. And do stuff."

Oh,  _fuck_  yes!

"I can supply that," I say, turning toward him and hugging him tight around the waist. He gives a small, satisfied squeak, flips onto his side, and presses an arm over my shoulders. I let my head find its way against his chest.

We lie there for an amount of time that is much too short, cut into an anxious sliver by what is expected of us, and before we know it, we are redressing like nothing happened.

Not that I'm complaining. I can enjoy it, the lights, the music, the  _attention_ , now that I'm confident Charlie is safe. We're gonna live.

We're gonna  _live_.


End file.
